A Comparison of Social Media Marketing Between B2B, B2C ... · compare organizational practices in...

This is a peer-reviewed, accepted author manuscript of the following research article: Iankova, S., Davies, I., Archer-

Brown, C., Marder, B., & Yau, A. (2019). A comparison of social media marketing between B2B, B2C and mixed

business models. Industrial Marketing Management, 81, 169-179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.01.001

A Comparison of Social Media Marketing Between B2B, B2C and Mixed

Business Models

By: Iankova, S., Davies, I.A., Archer-Brown, C., Marder, B., & Yau, A.

Accepted in Industrial Marketing Management

Abstract

This paper explores the implicit assumption in the growing body of literature that social media

usage is fundamentally different in business-to-business (B2B) companies than in the extant

business-to-consumer (B2C) literature. Sashi’s (2012) customer engagement cycle is utilized to

compare organizational practices in relation to social media marketing in B2B, B2C, Mixed

B2B/B2C and B2B2C business models. Utilizing 449 responses to an exploratory panel based

survey instrument, we clearly identify differences in social media usage and its perceived

importance as a communications channel. In particular we identify distinct differences in the

relationship between social media importance and the perceived effectiveness of social media

marketing across business models. Our results indicate that B2B social media usage is distinct

from B2C, Mixed and B2B2C business model approaches. Specifically B2B organizational

members perceive social media to have a lower overall effectiveness as a channel and identify it

as less important for relationship oriented usage than other business models.

Key Words: Social media; channel management; business-to-business marketing; B2B2C

marketing; channel effectiveness

Funding Statement: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in

the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.01.001

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1.1 Introduction

Towards the end of 2013, Volvo Trucks produced the ‘Live Test’ series of videos which

drew heavily on conventional wisdom on Social Media Marketing (SMM) effectiveness by

including surprise humour, and a degree of jeopardy (see Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland,

Vanhammer, & Van Wijk, 2007). Despite being targeted at a niche audience of fleet buyers, the

videos have been viewed over 120m times on YouTube to date. While there can be little doubt

that this campaign was a huge success in building brand awareness (Griner, 2014), it is unclear

whether the Volvo campaign is an exception in its use of a business-to-consumer (B2C) SMM

techniques in the business-to-business (B2B) domain, or one that can be generalised to reflect a

broader level of B2B mimicry of B2C approaches.

The use of social media platforms as marketing channels has expanded in recent years,

driven by the ability to reach millions of customers with brand-related content and to engage

them in conversations (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011; Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016). The

most influential papers on the subject are grounded in the B2C domain, and form the basis for

the academic conception of how social media can be exploited to build brands and communicate

with customers (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Kietzmann et al., 2011).

Despite the emergence of studies that examine the use of SMM techniques by B2B

organizations, our understanding of this important area is comparatively limited (Itani, Agnihotri

& Dingus, 2017; Siamagka, Christodoulides, Michaelidou, & Valvi, 2015; Salo, 2017). Extant

literature largely assumes that the use of social media by B2B organizations is different, and

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therefore requires alternative theories (Salo, 2017). However, to date, only Moore, Hopkins, and

Raymond (2013), Swani, Brown and Milne, (2014) and Swani, Milne, Brown, Assaf, and

Donthu (2017) have empirically explored these differences; the first only in selling activities and

the later two in terms of the content of social media posts (on Twitter and Facebook

respectively). To date no paper explores differences in SMM usage across mixed business

models, such as organizations selling to both business customers and consumers separately, or

business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) business models, where the direct customer is an

organization, but marketing activities are targeted at the end consumer and intermediary

simultaneously. This paper therefore takes a broader perspective than existing studies by

comparing SMM usage and perceived effectiveness across a broader range of business models.

In terms of pure B2B / B2C comparisons, Moore et al. (2013), focuses particularly on

selling activities through SMM, but existing B2B studies advocate the use of social media in all

stages of the customer relationship (Guesalaga, 2016; Moncrief, Marshall, & Rudd, 2015;

Schultz, Schwepker, & Good, 2012). Similarly, Swani and colleagues (2014; 2017), consider

only content of social media posts, and not the role the content plays in the customer engagement

cycle. A comparison of different business model approaches to SMM throughout the customer

relationship is therefore currently lacking in the literature. Sashi (2012) develops a framework

for exploring customer engagement cycles in social media in the B2C domain, but drawing from

B2B theories of relationship marketing. Sashi elaborates on how B2C relationship life-cycles can

be stimulated and managed using social media channels. By utilizing Sashi’s framework to

delineate between marketing activities that are oriented towards acquiring new customers; and

those that are focused on developing relationships with existing customers, we provide a broader

coverage than the three existing papers comparing B2B and B2C usage of SMM, but also

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respond to Sashi’s own call for empirical validation of the framework in various contexts. The

exploratory quantitative study in this paper therefore takes a broader perspective than existing

studies by comparing SMM usage, importance, and perceived effectiveness across a range of

business models, and throughout the customer engagement cycle. We explore a range of

perspectives including usage intensity; channel selection; perceived importance to managers; and

the stage in the relationship life-cycle, comparing pure B2B firms with their B2C, Mixed and

B2B2C business model counter-parts. We then directly compare these business models, focusing

on the extent to which SMM strategies are correlated with the perception of success in social

media usage. We therefore contribute a broader exploration of the differences in social media

usage across business models, highlighting the highest overall usage in B2B2C organizations,

and lowest perceived effectiveness in pure B2B organizations. We theoretically contribute by

confirming difference in SMM usage at different stages of the customer life-cycle, finding B2B

firms to be more focused on SMM for acquisition oriented usage, rather than relationship

orientated usage, as explored by Moore et al. (2013). The paper is organized as follows: we

provide an overview of SMM literature in the B2B domain, we outline our methodology, discuss

our findings and conclude with limitations and recommendations for future research.

1.2 Literature Review

Social media in the context of B2C is widely researched, with its developed concepts and

constructs, becoming an integral part of consumers’ modern lives (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016;

Siamagka et al., 2015). This increase in popularity has been exploited in a number of ways in

B2C, and often forms a large part of a company’s marketing strategy (Ngai, Tao, & Moon,

2015). Companies are able to communicate with consumers at a much lower cost than ever

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before through social media (Hainla, 2017; Neti, 2011), generating content online quickly and

cheaply to develop brand presence (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). However, the extent to which this

theory is applicable to other business model domains such as B2B, Mixed B2C/B2B and B2B2C

domains is reltively under-researched (Moore et al., 2013; Swani et al., 2017). Little to nothing is

known about Mixed and B2B2C business model organizations, and although the B2B domain is

growing, it is still in its theoretical infancy (Silo, 2017). The following sub-sections therefore

explore the current literature regarding SMM in B2B domains, centred around four key areas: (1)

business models; (2) marketing channel mix; (3) customer orientated social media usage; and (4)

perceived SMM effectiveness. Each section provides an overview of the relevant literature,

identifying the pertinent gaps and highlighting the research questions we seek to answer in this

paper.

1.2.1 Business Model Criticality

Research in SMM has been dominated by a focus on interactions between businesses and

consumers (Lacka & Chong, 2016). A common theme being that social media channels provide

an opportunity for both parties to engage in dialogue (Kietzmann et al., 2011). However,

consistent with the notion that B2B marketing is different from B2C (Ellis, 2011), researchers

have noted a general difference in social media adoption (Quinton & Wilson, 2016), where the

former has generally been slower in transitioning to this dialogical approach (Järvinen, Tollinen,

Karjaluoto, & Jayawardhena, 2012). Despite the common assumption of a difference in SMM

usage between B2B and B2C organizations (Salo, 2017), the overall empirical evidence for this

difference is limited, beyond B2B organizations being earlier in the adoption cycle. Moore et

al.’s (2013) paper on selling activities was the first to directly explore differences in usage

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empirically, focusing on B2B organizations’ preference for professional social networks such as

LinkedIn, as opposed to B2C organizations’ preference for mass-consumption social media such

as Facebook. They also show that B2B organizations make more use of social media for dyadic

relationship oriented purposes within the sales process than their B2C counterparts. Swani and

colleagues (2014; 2017) identify specific differences in the content of B2B and B2C SMM on

both Twitter and Facebook respectively; especially in the extent to which B2B firms have more

links and cues to product information, and focus on emotional messaging. Other than these

studies, however, little has empirically explored differences in SMM usage across business

models.

To dichotomize markets into B2B and B2C, is however overly simplistic (Leek &

Christodoulides 2011). We therefore consider two other common business models in this paper,

neither of which have been studied for comparative SMM usage before: (1) ‘mixed’ refers to

businesses that sell products to both other businesses and individual consumers (for example

Amazon has many business customers and partners, as well as its B2C retail); (2) B2B2C refers

to firms that, although directly earning revenue from organizational customers, manage customer

experience (or the marketing of products and services) to the customers-customer, and down to

the end consumer (Wiersema, 2013). B2B2C firms therefore market themselves simultaneously

to both businesses and consumers. This is distinguished from ‘Mixed’ businesses models by the

need for individual transactions to ultimately require all three parties. Leek and Christodoulides

(2011) cite the seminal ‘Intel Inside’ campaign, which equated the quality of a PC in consumers’

minds with the presence of the firm’s chip. Whilst Intel only ‘sold’ chips to electronics

manufacturers, they developed their brand with consumers in order to create demand. More

recent examples of B2B2C organizations are often based on e-commerce platforms such as

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Alibaba (Zhao & Guo, 2012), and it is important to investigate B2B2C companies separately due

to the differences in marketing approach between them and more dichotomous forms of business

model (Järvinen et al., 2012; Zhao & Guo, 2012). As identified above, the nature of any

differences in the social media usage across the four types remains largely tacit, and this is a key

driver for this paper, leading to our overarching research question:

RQ1: To what extent is social media usage different in B2B organizations

compared to B2C, Mixed and B2B2C business models?

We consider this question from a number of different perspectives, which are outlined, and

broken down in to sub-questions in the following sections.

1.2.2 Channels Usage

Although most SMM channels offer similar abilities to marketers (e.g. communicate

content, target and engage consumers), different social media platform are perceived more

favourably for certain forms of communications: Facebook is for providing a rich means for

customer relationship management (Popp, Wilson, Horbel, & Woratschek, 2016); Twitter is

known for its ability to communicate brand messages and mining consumer responses in real-

time (Culotta & Cutler, 2016); Instagram is a means for sharing image-based content (Muñoz &

Towner, 2017); and YouTube for videos (Indvik, 2011). Although certain channels have

strengths in different arenas, Pozza (2014) asserts that “better customer experience is driven by

the presence of multiple channels” (p. 1274).

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Literature suggests B2C firms have been quick to adopt social media as a strategic tool,

whereas B2B firms often find it difficult to identify and integrate the platforms into their digital

marketing mix (Järvinen et al., 2012; Quinton & Wilson, 2016). Although social media enables

organizations to increase the volume of potential relationship opportunities in B2B, the channel

management focus still remains narrowly focused on strategic network development, rather than

on a many-to-many communications according to the literature (Arnaboldi & Coget, 2016;

Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010; Lee, Hwang, & Lee, 2006; Muñoz & Towner, 2017). Therefore,

research in B2B often focuses on how social media is used in specific areas such as sales

(Guesalaga, 2016; Itani et al. 2017), key account management (Lacoste, 2016), or employer-

employee interactions (Kaur, 2015; Moser, Tumasjan, & Welpe, 2016), rather than a broader

consideration of the role it plays in the overall channel marketing mix.

Face-to-face selling is still considered to be the dominant form of communication for

B2B organisations, although in reality only a fraction of the communication happens in person

(Järvinen et al., 2012). Therefore literature shows B2B organizations viewing social media as a

supportive tool to enhancing customer relationships, but the gap between potential and actual use

of the channels remains large (Jussila et al., 2014). In B2B organizations, social media is used to

enhance SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) driving traffic to home – and/or landing pages, thus

resulting in customer engagement, customer service, and lead generation (Swani et al., 2014;

Itani et al., 2017). Technology companies such as Dell, Intel and Oracle use Twitter for customer

service, YouTube is used as a platform for webpage video integration, whereas LinkedIn is used

to connect with clients and develop professional networking ties (Järvinen et al., 2012; Lacoste,

2016). Research also shows that B2B practitioners use social media channels for targeting

professionals, whereas their B2C counterparts use the channels to engage with the general public

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(Moore et al., 2013). Specifically, B2B sales professionals use social media marketing for

prospecting, handling objections, and after sale follow-up (Moore et al., 2013). On the contrary,

B2C salespeople value the connection with individual consumers (Moore et al., 2013).

The limited comparative research carried out show that B2B firms are able to exploit

social media, but it is not clear how widespread usage is, or whether social media has been

integrated, or how important it is perceived to be within marketing channel management

(Brennan et al., 2011; Järvinen et al., 2012). Although sales-people are amongst the professionals

who use relationship-oriented SMM to accomplish objectives (Moore et al., 2013), established

digital tools such as e-newsletters and email marketing are suggested to still dominate the digital

marketing mix within B2B organisations (Järvinen et al., 2012). To date, only Moore et al.,

(2013) has carried out comparative research investigating the utilization of relationship-oriented

social media in the selling process. This research contributes to this gap in the literature by

comparing the channel mix and SMM channel importance across different business models,

leading to the following research questions:

RQ1a What differences exist in the relative usage of social media as part of the

channel mix between B2B and other business models?

RQ1b What is the relative importance of different social media channels between

B2B and other business models?

1.2.3 Customer Orientated Usage of SMM

B2B relationship marketing theories build our understanding of the different forms and

structures of value creation between seller and buyer (Grönroos, 1994, 1996). They have been

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adopted into the consumer domain, encouraging a move from transactional to relational models,

incorporating trust and commitment (Garbarino & Johnson, 1999; Morgan & Hunt, 1994). This

has formed a focal theoretical lens for understanding social media usage in B2C organizations

(Hasani, Bojei, & Dehghantanha, 2017; Lacoste, 2016; Sashi, 2012; Williams & Chinn, 2010).

Relationship marketing theory is specifically applied in social media research to explore how

customer engagement facilitates dialogue, which is a pre-requisite to developing desirable

relationships between firms and consumers (Lacoste, 2016; Williams & Chinn, 2010).

Sashi (2012) proposes a customer engagement framework that establishes social

platforms as central to developing dialogue with customers throughout the relationship life-cycle.

A key contribution of this work is the establishment of affective and calculative commitment

between sellers and buyers, where they become co-creators of value. For consumer marketers,

this was argued to be a recent possibility, enabled by the features of social media that allow

customers to engage with each other, and with the brand itself: a process described by Kietzmann

et al. (2011) as democratizing communications. Further, Sashi elaborates the unique role played

by social platforms at different stages of the relationship (for example, the role of communities

as a source of pre-sales information, and as a way to engage in meaningful post-purchase

dialogue with other users). Finally, Sashi proposes that the framework is cyclical, in the sense

that engaged customers facilitate better connection with new prospects, both through advocacy

and through dialogue. Sashi’s (2012) framework is promising for application in a B2B context

for two reasons: (1) it highlights various ‘states’ of the relationship which draw on B2B

theorization in their lineage; and (2) provides useful guidance in the strategies necessary for

firms to encourage transition from one stage to the next. The life-cycle view is a key area of

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focus for our study, and provides the theoretical underpinning for our identification of

Acquisition Orientated (AO) and Relationship Orientated (RO) usage of SMM in organizations.

1.2.3.1 Acquisition Orientation

Acquisition Orientation refers to the activities engaged in by firms to identify and interact

with prospective customers and, specifically, where the aim is to engage them in their first

transaction with the firm (Sashi, 2012). In relation to social media, this may include: using paid

advertisements on social platforms (Stephen & Galak, 2012); engaging influencers to promote or

refer to the brand (Kozinets et al., 2010; Barry & Gironda, 2017); or creating content that can

virally spread, thus connecting new audiences with the brand (Popp et al., 2016; Pitt et al., 2017).

The present study considers any activity that is designed to attract the attention and interest of

new customers, to engage them in an initial interaction, and to guide them through the sales

funnel towards the first sale as ‘Acquisition Oriented’.

Specifically this relates to the first two stages of Sachi’s (2012) engagement model:

connection and interaction. The aim of the former is to match buyers: (1) who may be searching

to meet known needs with sellers; (2) to facilitate serendipitous discovery; or (3) make

introductions of new products and services to users who are browsing social media in a general

way. Importantly, social media has the capacity to link potential customers with brands directly

by following links to their own website (Leek et al., 2017; Swani et al., 2014), or by making

direct connections within the platform itself, for example with a brand’s own social media page

(Pagani and Pardo, 2017; de Vries, Gensler & Leeflang, 2012).

Given that the focus of the social media literature in the acquisition phase is consumer

oriented, it is currently unclear to what extent these techniques are echoed by B2B firms.

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1.2.3.2 Relationship Orientation

Where we consider any activity designed to stimulate the initial transaction between

buyer and seller ‘Acquisition Orientated’; any interaction beyond this we categorised as

‘Relationship Oriented’, or part of the process of fulfilling the initial promises made (Grönroos

2009). In Sashi’s (2012) conception, this involves: satisfaction (e.g. using social media to

directly message customers with delivery or service details); retention (e.g. using cookies and re-

marketing techniques to remind customers of the brand and encourage them to return);

connection (e.g. to create and promote content via social channels to customers to remind them

of their relationship with the firm); advocacy (e.g. the active encouragement to recommend to

others); engagement (i.e. the provision of channels for customers to interact with each other, and

with members of the firm, in ways that are meaningful to both parties).

The aim of these activities is to drive a more committed and meaningful relationship

between the brand and customers (Sashi, 2012). In the B2C context, these are referred to as

‘creative consumers’ who are producers of value-added content (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, &

Shapiro, 2012), who are no longer passive recipients in the marketing exchange process (Hanna

et al., 2011). Companies are also creating value on social media for customers through building

online relationships, and simultaneously capturing value from the customer through raised brand

awareness and new customer insights (Barwise & Meehan, 2010; Kotler & Armstrong, 2008).

We therefore see RO usage with the emergence of many-to-many co-creation at the heart of

social media in B2C (Hajli, 2013; Mount & Martinez, 2014; Sashi, 2012). However it is unclear

if this RO usage is similar in B2B organizations, where dyadic sales use is most clearly

articulated (Guesalaga, 2016; Moore et al., 2013; Siamagka et al., 2015) leading to our next

research question:

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RQ1c Do B2B organizations place a different level of importance on social media

usage for different stages of the relationship (Acquisition vs. Relationship

Orientated usage) compared to other business models?

1.2.4 Perceived Effectiveness of SMM

Having so far concentrated our attention on the exploitation of digital channels for

external communications, our final research question focuses on the correlation between the

customer relationship stage and the perceived effectiveness of SMM to the firm. Figure 1

outlines the conceptual model that underpins this enquiry, and this is elaborated in the following

section.

[Insert Figure 1 about here]

While social media platforms are widely recognised by their relative ease of

measurability (Järvinen et al., 2012), there is uncertainty among marketers with respect to the

value of SMM (Weinberg & Pehlivan, 2011). This is reflected in contemporary practitioner

discourse where it may be considered a ‘fad’ by many senior executives, which results in

underinvestment (DeMers, 2017). Our dependent variable focuses on the perception of SMM

effectiveness, and for this, we adopt Hoffman and Fodor’s (2010) conceptualisation, where they

stress that “returns from social media investments will not always be measured in dollars, but

also in customer behaviours (consumer investments) tied to particular social media applications”

(p. 42). Many B2B companies do not actively measure digital marketing performance, and

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measurement in general is not considered important (Järvinen et al., 2012), but it is important to

establish how B2B organisations perceive SMM effectiveness.

1.2.4.1 Acquisition vs Relationship Orientation

Social media is accepted in the B2C domain as an appropriate channel across the full

customer lifecycle: “awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behaviour,

and post-purchase communication and evaluation” (Mangold & Faulds, 2009, p.358), where

consumers create, and can be active participants in the process (Berthon et al., 2012; Dessart,

Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015). In this way they actively influence brand meanings and

messages, and dictate product or service developments, which represents both an opportunity for

companies to capitalize on online information, but also results in relinquishing control of key

areas of competitive positioning (Dessart et al., 2015; Hanna et al., 2011). However, as outlined

in Section 1.2.3, the nature of SMM activity may change dependent upon whether the firm

wishes to attract the attention of potential customers, or establish on-going meaningful post-

purchase dialogue (Sashi, 2012). Reflecting this, the conceptual model allows us to explore any

differences between the broad categories under which these examples lie.

1.2.4.2 Digital Channel Dominance

Further, the conceptual model outlined in Figure 1 allows us to distinguish between

traditional (offline) from digital (online) activities. By investigating the presence of a mediation

effect between the independent variables: Acquisition Orientation (AO) and Relationship

Orientation (RO), and the dependent variable (Perceived Effectiveness of SMM), we are able to

establish whether an overall greater digital focus in the marketing activities influence the extent

to which SMM is valued. In other words, if the firm’s marketing efforts are dominated by digital

channels they may be more open to SMM.

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1.2.4.3 Moderating Effect of Business Model Category

By comparing the four different business models, we are able to establish whether SMM

theory should be different for B2B organizations compared to their colleagues in consumer-

facing organizations – a primary motivator for our paper. Prior theorisation suggests that B2B

firms will focus more heavily on relationship activities (Moore, et al., 2013; Salo, 2017), but in

common with the general approach in our paper, we do not predict a direction or nature of

relationships, but propose a research question that allows us to explore the phenomenon; thus:

RQ2 Is the use of social media in different stages of the customer life-cycle

correlated with perceived effectiveness and to what extent is this different

between business models

1.3 Methodology

To explore the extent to which B2B social media usage is different to other business

models, this paper adopts an exploratory quantitative survey methodology, utilizing mixed

methods of analysis. Explicit hypotheses are not set as the direction of hypotheses is unclear in

the emerging B2B literature; therefore a more exploratory approach to analysis is adopted. A

broad scale survey was adopted drawing on data from a mixed panel of marketing based

employees in mixed sized organizations. The panel data distinguishes between four different

types of respondent organization: (1) pure B2B; (2) pure B2C; (3) mixed B2B and B2C (>20%

revenue from each activity); and (4) B2B2C.

1.3.1 Survey Development

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The survey was developed drawing on both the B2B literature (Brennan & Croft, 2012;

Michaelidou et al., 2011; Siamagka et al., 2015), and upon frameworks for SMM which were

developed in the B2C domain (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Reilly & Marx, 2013;

Sashi, 2012). Specifically, we drew upon this literature to develop the survey in three sections

focusing on: (1) the types of social media used in marketing efforts (derived from Kaplan &

Haenlein, 2010; Michaelidou et al., 2011; Solis, 2017): (2) the importance of these SMM

channels to marketing managers (derived from Järvinen et al., 2012; Lacka & Chong, 2016;

Michaelidou et al., 2011); and (3) using SMM techniques to manage relationships with

customers (derived from Brennan & Croft, 2012; Quinton & Wilson, 2016). Finally, recognizing

the complexities of measuring social media effectiveness (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010), and the

exploratory nature of the study, we identified three complementary measures to create our

Perceived Effectiveness of SMM scale (effective, successful and valuable). The individual

questions asked are presented in the relevant data tables in the findings section.

1.3.2 Sampling

The data was collected through two panels (a university owned panel based on alumni

data, and Qualtrics Panels). In order to maintain consistency of data, respondents were included

only if they worked in the USA or UK (both early adopters of SMM, in the global top 10 for

advertising spend in digital media, and with a common language thus avoiding potential issues in

survey comprehension), and within marketing functions in their organizations. Two panels were

used, as neither was large enough independently to provide our targeted 500 respondents from

the specified regions, job titles, and mix of business types. The university database provided 137

responses, whereas the Qualtrics Panel data provided 377, giving an effective sample of 509.

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However, on further inspection, 60 respondents either did not work within the UK or USA, or

failed to provide answers to all questions. Therefore, the working sample size was 449 (see Table

1 for participant company statistics). The equivalence of the US and UK samples was tested

through a series of independent sample t-tests within the equivalence tool for SPSS created by

Weber and Popova (2012), equivalence was largely maintained at the guide threshold delta of

Cohens d = .2 (Stegner, Bostrom, & Greenfield, 1996), however specific construct equivalence

was sometimes uncertain at this guide level.

[Insert table 1 about here]

1.3.3 Data Analysis

To respond to the three parts of research question 1, on the differences in social media

usage between the four classifications of business model, multi-group Tukey post-hoc ANOVAs

were utilized. Lavene’s Test for homogeneity of variance were almost universally non-

significant, suggesting we can assume homogeneity of variance, thus Tukey was the appropriate

post-hoc test. Research question 2, on the relationship between the perceived importance of

channels, digital dominance, and perceived effectiveness of SMM, was tested using partial least

squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) which simultaneously measures the

relationships between multiple constructs. PLS-SEM has been used extensively in the marketing

literature to test theory, and has been particularly linked with exploratory studies such as this

one. Further, it was suitable from a methodological perspective where a model includes

formative measures (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011). Finally, PLS has been linked with small

samples and, while this was not an issue in the dataset as a whole, we needed to be careful of

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smaller groups for category analysis (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Mena, 2012). The full details of

the model and this approach are included in the second results section, as the first section of the

results informed the model development.

1.4 Findings

The findings section is split into two sections, the first covering the three parts of research

question 1 on the differences between B2B and the other three business models in terms of

relative channel mix, the importance of social media channels and customer oriented SMM

usage. The second section covers research question 2, exploring the relationship between the

importance ascribed to social media usage, and the perceived effectiveness of SMM between

business models.

1.4.1 Identification of differences in B2B social media usage

In response to research questions 1(a, b & c) we explored differing approaches to channel

usage, types of social media used, and the importance of social media for different marketing

activities. Since the questions relate to differences in B2B social media usage compared to the

three other business models (B2C, Mixed B2B and B2C, and B2B2C), the tables present

significance scores between B2B and each of the other three business models (B2C, mixed and

B2B2C); not significant difference between the three other business models. The data is

presented this way to simplify data presentation and ensure clarity in response to the research

questions. The mean for the B2B companies are in Bold where they have significant differences

to all other business models, and are in italics where they are significantly different to only some

of the other business models.

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1.4.1.1 Channel usage

Research question 1a seeks to understand the difference in customer focused channel

usage between B2B and the other business models. Table 2 presents the results of the Tukey post

hoc ANOVA tests on the extent to which companies use different communication channels with

customers. We identify significant differences in how B2B organizations communicate with

customers compared to the other three business models. In direct comparison with pure B2C

businesses, we see a significant divergence, with B2B organizations using one-to-many,

impersonal marketing channels (print, traditional broadcast media, direct mail) with significantly

less frequency than B2C organizations. Conversely the B2B organizations use one-to-one,

personal marketing channels far more frequently (sales, company visits, telemarketing and

tradeshows). In terms of many-to-many (i.e. social media) we also see a significant difference,

with B2B organizations being significantly lower users than B2C organizations. One interesting

phenomena to emerge from the analysis was that the B2B organizations were also significantly

different to mixed business models and B2B2C in one-to-many and many-to-many channel

usage (including social media), but not in one-to-one channels. Conversely B2C organizations

were equivalent to mixed business models in many-to-many and one-to-many channels, but not

one-to-one (although these significances are not reported here). This is consistent with the idea

that mixed B2B / B2C organizations have to use channels consummate with pure B2B and pure

B2C companies in the different parts of the business, and suggests respondents were able to

answer for both sides of the business. This provides a high level of confidence in the data,

because, at the level of channel usage, our results conform to traditional understandings of

relative channel usage strategies (Ellis, 2011).

20

[Insert Table 2 here]

1.4.1.2 Importance of Social Media Channels

In terms of research question 1b the importance of social media channels, a similar

pattern emerges. In table 3 we see an almost universally lower level of importance ascribed to

social media channels by pure B2B businesses, although not always significantly. In particular

we see significant differences in the importance ascribed to traditional social networks, picture

sharing sites, and review type media. The only social media platform for which B2B businesses

are significantly bigger users is on business related social networks such as LinkedIn (as also

found by Moore et al., 2013). Once again mixed model B2B / B2C businesses make similar

usage levels to B2B companies in this media. We do however see mixed business models tend to

consider all social media of higher importance than other business models. Again this could be

due to the relative benefits of the different channels for each side of the business, or possibly

that, in our sample, the mixed B2B / B2C businesses were slightly larger on average (see table

1), and the size of company may potentially affect the overall usage, and as such importance of

social media – although further research would be needed on the impact of business size on

social media adoption. The most interesting group however is the B2B2C businesses, which are

often described as frequent user of online media (Zhao & Guo, 2012). They noticeably use

ratings and reviews more than any other types of business, suggesting e-word of mouth (eWOM)

may be important to these B2B2C businesses. This potentially makes sense considering the co-

branded nature of a B2B2C organization. Both the B2B2C organization and their mediator to the

consumer are likely to be co-branding at the point of purchase (think of Intel and a computer

21

manufacturer). These businesses may therefore be more reliant on eWOM for communicating

the benefits of their offering, than a B2C company that communicates directly with consumers.

[Insert table 3 here]

1.4.1.3 Customer Orientated Usage of Social Media

Research question 1c seeks to understand the relative importance of social media in

managing customers between B2B and other business models. In the literature we identified a

difference between Relationship Oriented usage and Acquisition Orientated usage based on

Sashi’s (2012) model. Table 4 therefore separates these two forms of usage, although this

separation and wording was not used in the structure of the survey itself. Counter to Moore et al.,

(2013) we find that B2B organizations are using social media far less for Relationship Orientated

usage purposes than the other business models. Again not all items are significant, but the

direction of difference is consistent, and many differences are significant. This suggests social

media is potentially less important, at the present time, for managing ongoing relationships in

B2B organizations than for B2C, Mixed or B2B2C organizations. We also again see the B2B2C

businesses ascribing high importance to social media in terms of providing customer service, and

building customer relationships.

In terms of Acquisition Orientated usage, which includes branding and awareness raising

type activities, we see less difference in the use of social media. Other than the significantly

lower usage by B2B, versus Mixed and B2B2C organizations on attracting new customers, we

see only marginal significances between the different business types, and none between B2B and

22

B2C businesses. The scores are also universally high (~5 out of 7). This suggests all types of

businesses ascribe similar importance to social media for acquisition related activities.


1.4.2 Perceived Effectiveness of SMM

In response to research question 2 on the effectiveness of SMM, we see a continuing

pattern from the usage of social media in B2B versus other business models. B2B organizations

see social media as a less effective communication channel, and to have less potential as a

channel for the business (see table 5). There does however appear to be a broad perception that it

can be effective if managed properly, but at present there is a lack of belief in its usefulness

compared to other communication channels.


As previously outlined, relationship marketing has been a defining characteristic of B2B

marketing strategies, recognizing that as the relationship between the buyer and seller develops

and deepens, the nature of the communications also mature (Gummesson & Grönroos, 2012).

This becomes the focus of the second phase of our analysis. As outlined above, the theoretical

basis of our model is Sashi’s (2012) engagement cycle..

The relationship continuum was investigated in table 4 where we delineate between

Acquisition Orientated usage (including awareness activities and brand development) and

Relationship Orientated usage (which assumes the existence of a commercial relationship).

23

Noting the important differences between business models in the choice of channel (see table 2),

we pay particular attention to the mediating role of digital channels. By focusing our mediator

‘digital dominance’ on only electronic channels (e.g. Web PR, search engine optimization), we

are able to isolate a score for those who have high vs low prevalence of digital channel usage.

This allows us to mediate for the higher digital dominance in B2C, B2B2C and mixed business

models, and the potential effect this has on our dependent variable.

Sashi’s model indicates that the goal of relationship marketing in a contemporary digital

environment is an ‘engaged consumer’, but the identification of return on the investment (ROI)

resulting from this is outside of the scope of his paper. Here, our dependent variable is the

professional marketer’s perception of effectiveness. In common with RQ1c, our independent

variables are the Relationship Oriented vs Acquisition Oriented activities and we control for the

channel to ensure we isolate the effect of social media as a digital strategy. This helps develop

our understanding of the relationship between stages in the engagement lifecycle and perceived

effectiveness of SMM. Further, through the use of multi-group analysis, we are able to observe

differences between the four business models under investigation (See Table 5).

1.4.2.1 Data Validation

We used SmartPLS version 3.2 (Ringle, Wende & Becker, 2016) and followed

procedures outlined by Hair et al. (2014). Evaluation of outer and cross loadings indicates that

items exceed the threshold of .708 in all cases. Further, each item loads more effectively to its

own construct than to any other, indicating valid constructs. As shown in table 6, this is

supported by reliability indicators that comfortably exceed the threshold of Composite

Reliability and Cronbach’s Alpha >.800 (Nunnally, 1978).

24

[Table 6 about here]

Data was assessed for discriminant validity by establishing that the Square Root of the

Average Variance Extracted (AVE) was greater than the correlations between other constructs

(See Table 7). We further validated discriminant validity using a measure recently proposed by

Henseler et al. (2014) referred to as the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio. In our data, the

HTMT ratio met the required <.900 in all cases.


Finally, Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) indicates whether results may be inflated by

multi-collinearity. Our data conformed to the required thresholds of VIF >.2 < 5 advocated by

Hair et al. (2014). In summary, the validity tests indicated that our data met accepted thresholds

for convergent validity, discriminant validity, reliability and multi-collinearity. While our

primary aim was to test the specific relationships across the different business models, it is worth

noting that the specified model meets the accepted threshold of acceptable fit as measured by

standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) of .068 as noted by Henseler et al. (2014).

Further the R2 of the dependent variable is acceptable (.382) given the relative scope of the

model with a small number of independent variables.

1.4.2.2 Testing the Paths

25

Tests were conducted to assess the individual path co-efficients along with their

corresponding p-value, reporting non-significant findings for completeness (see table 8). In line

with Baron and Kenny (1986) we pre-tested the direct relationships between both orientations

and the dependent variable separately, noting significant paths (ps <.05). By reviewing the direct

effects vs. the total effects, we noted a greater path level co-efficient in all cases, indicating that

the digital channel choice mediated the relationship between the orientations and the dependent

variable. In both cases as the direct paths become non-significant, we can infer full mediation.


1.5 Discussion

It has been an assertion of the B2B literature to date that social media usage is

fundamentally different to usage in B2C sectors (Brennan & Croft, 2012; Guesalaga, 2016; Kaur,

2015; Lacoste, 2016; Moser et al., 2016; Quinton & Wilson, 2016). In this paper we demonstrate

that this is emphatically correct, particularly in respect to overall social media as part of the

channel marketing strategy (RQ1a), the importance ascribed to SMM channels (RQ1b), the lower

perceived importance of Relationship Orientated usage (RQ1c) and the relationship between the

importance of social media channels and their perceived effectiveness for marketing (RQ2). B2B

does therefore need its own theories of social media usage, in addition to the B2C theory.

One substantial contribution of this paper, however, is to include not only B2B and B2C

organizations, but also Mixed business models and B2B2C business models, which receive

comparatively little analysis in the literature. In doing so we find that; although the relative usage

of social media as part of the overall marketing mix is lower in B2B than for B2C organizations,

26

this does not hold for Mixed and B2B2C organizations who are among the highest users of social

media. This difference relates to both (1) the types of channels used, and (2) the importance of

that usage for different aspects of customer engagement. We see significant differences not only

in the types of social media used; with only LinkedIn being more commonly used by B2B and

B2B2C organizations, but also in the purpose it serves. Unlike the extant B2B literature which

tends to focus on social media being used on the customer relationship interface (Guesalaga,

2016; Lacoste, 2016), we find less importance ascribed by pure B2B organizations to social

media for relationship management than in other business models. Indeed, as shown in table 4, it

is through thought leadership and corporate branding that B2B organizations are finding similar

levels of importance in social media to their B2C and mixed model counterparts.

This raises interesting questions about the application of marketing theory in social media

(Hasani et al., 2017; Lacoste, 2016; Williams & Chinn, 2010). We find that B2B organizations

perceive social media to have greater importance in the customer acquisition phases of Sashi’s

(2012) engagement cycle, with higher perceived importance given to Acquisition Orientated

usage than Relationship Orientated usage. We also find that B2B organizations have lower

relative levels of importance given to Relationship Orientated usage compared to other business

models, but similar Acquisition Orientated usage. One possible explanation is that B2C literature

has focused on relational marketing because businesses gain access to customers’ lived

experience insights, and a two-way dialogue via social media; data that was traditionally

expensive to obtain in B2C (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011). B2B organizations however already

have close relationships with existing customers, and therefore have access to insight into lived

experience, and routes to ongoing dialogue (Ford, 1980; Grönroos, 1990). Therefore, B2B

organizations gain something that was traditionally a poor return on investment to them - a

27

means of mass-mediated communication, which spreads through social networks through

eWOM. So, where we have seen B2B relationship marketing theory providing theoretical

frameworks for B2C social media usage, there may be value in investigating B2B SMM through

a mass-mediate consumer marketing lens. Particularly around issues of corporate branding,

eWOM, viral marketing, and native advertising (as a form of thought leadership) (Chu & Kim,

2011; Fulgoni & Lipsman, 2014; Gylling & Lindberg-Repo, 2006; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011).

Taking this different approach to customer engagement further, research question 2

focuses on the perceived effectiveness of SMM in the Acquisition and Relational Orientated

usage. Here we confirm that B2B organizations appear to view SMM as less important than their

B2C, Mixed and B2B2C counterparts for RO activities, but they rate them on par with the others

when it comes to AO activities. This is counter to the extant theory, which suggests that B2B

organizations would focus more heavily on the importance of relationship activities (Moore et

al., 2013). However, when taking into account the channel focus in the question, we speculate

that B2B organizations see social media as important in developing reputation and initiating a

relationship but beyond this, they rely on offline channels (e.g. face-to-face). This is in line with

Lacoste’s (2016) conclusions on social media in B2B key account management.

However, when we consider the relationship between self-reported importance of the

channel (IV) with perceived effectiveness of SMM (DV) in our PLS-SEM analysis, we note an

interesting result in relation to relationship marketing activities. B2B respondents, who consider

social media to be an important digital strategy for this purpose, also perceive themselves to be

overall more effective at it. This suggests that for some B2B organizations, social media

represents an untapped resource that can be exploited more effectively. This supports the

28

assertions of Moncreif et al. (2015) and Schultz et al. (2012) who say that social media has a

place throughout the relationship life-cycle.

Overall we can therefore propose that B2B social media usage is distinct from B2C social

media usage, particularly in terms of its role in managing customer relationships. Further, we

note that this effect is exacerbated when we compare differences between those firms that are

more digitally focused than the norm.

1.6 Conclusion, Limitations and Future Research

In summary, this paper confirms the (previously assumed) propensity of the extant B2B

literature to treat social media usage as a different phenomenon to B2C social media usage.

Drawing on a survey of 449 UK and US business, we have been able to show that B2B

organizations use different social media channels, to serve different purposes, and with different

perceived results. In particular, our final model suggests the use of social media, in terms of

customer management at the new acquisition and ongoing relationship management stage, will

be fundamentally different. A key contribution, of both theoretical and practical importance, is

the somewhat surprising finding that B2B firms do not place as much importance on SMM as a

strategy to develop relationships with their existing customers compared to other business

models. This is born out by the Volvo Trucks example outlined at the start of this paper. Given

the ability of social media platforms to facilitate one-to-one and one-to-many communications,

this would seem an obvious opportunity to embed direct communications with members of client

teams. We can speculate that the relationship between the importance with which SMM is

viewed is an important factor in perception of effectiveness, and the value it may bring across a

range of tangible and intangible measures. Further, while the relationship is not specifically

29

investigated here, there is a sense that low levels of usage may correlate with perceptions of

importance and effectiveness. We speculate that the confidence of users may therefore be a key

factor and that B2B firms may be more concerned about the risks of social media. This could

also explain the reason why marketing professionals in those firms are on a par with their B2C

counterparts in the early-stages of the relationship but less so later, where potentially large

contract values are in jeopardy if negatively affected. Future qualitative research could uncover

the underlying perceptions and motivations of the marketing decision-makers that could explain

these relationships.

In addition, we suggest a greater need to investigate models of customer social media

engagement in B2B companies, building relational development models including social media

engagement, and identifying where social media interaction are of benefit to the overall

marketing success of B2B organizations. There is also a wealth of research opportunity in mixed

and B2B2C business models. So little is written about these models that the complementarity of

working across the traditional pure B2B and B2C sectors may yield fresh new insights into

customer management, and the overlap between B2B and B2C social media usage.

However, this paper approached the topic from an exploratory and contextually

abstracted level. It is therefore outside the scope of this paper to provide details of the particular

nuances as to how social media is used differently in these spaces, both across business models,

and across difference industrial sectors. The study is also limited to only two countries, and the

survey was developed to gain insight into perceived importance, usage and effectiveness, none of

which are direct measures of actual usage or outcome. There is also a potential for some overlap

between the two databases we employ. Although we can be certain, due to the targeted nature of

the mail out, that no company is represented more than once in either data base; for

30

confidentiality reasons Qualitrics Panel does not provide a list of companies involved in the

study. There is therefore a small chance of overlap between databases, but this should be

minimal.

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Figure 1: Conceptual Model

Acquisition

Orientation

Relationship

Orientation

Digital

Channel

Dominance

Perceived

Effectiveness

of SMM

Moderator:

Business

Model

Category

42

Table 1:

Participant company statistics

Totals B2B B2C Mixed B2B2C

Country 449 109 146 151 43

UK 180 60 53 58 7

USA 269 49 93 93 36

Business Size (no. Employees) 449 B2B B2C Mixed B2B2C

<50 103 28% 28% 14% 23%

50-99 47 11% 10% 12% 7%

100-499 87 17% 19% 22% 16%

500-999 38 11% 10% 7% 2%

1000-1999 32 5% 6% 8% 14%

2000-4999 49 9% 8% 14% 14%

>5000 93 18% 18% 24% 23%

Industry classification 449 B2B B2C Mixed B2B2C

Mechanical Engineering,

Manufacturing and process industries 48 30% 26% 30% 13%

Online Retailer 23 4% 52% 39% 4%

Internet service provider 11 45% 18% 27% 9%

Communication carrier 9 22% 0% 78% 0%

Banking and Finance 12 17% 25% 50% 8%

Professional Service & consulting 42 25% 27% 34% 14%

Government 14 21% 50% 21% 7%

Healthcare 21 14% 33% 38% 14%

Transport and utilities 11 27% 27% 36% 9%

Construction, Architecture, Civil

Engineering 19 16% 16% 58% 11%

Data Processing 4 50% 0% 50% 0%

Wholesale, Retail or distribution 64 11% 39% 34% 16%

Education 15 20% 47% 27% 7%

Marketing, advertising 42 40% 26% 24% 10%

IT 48 50% 13% 35% 2%

Other 66

43

Table 2: Channel Usage

How often does your company use the below marketing channels for communicating with

customers? (Reversed)

(1=never, 7=always)

Direct Mail Print Web PR Telemktg

Traditional

Broadcast

Online

Broadcast

B2B 3.1 Sig. 2.93 Sig. 4.04 Sig. 2.92 Sig. 1.53 Sig. 2.35 Sig.

B2C 3.72* .047 3.49* .048 3.99 .999 2.23* .041 2.58** .000 2.81 .264

Mixed 4.29** .000 4.05** .000 4.39 .298 3.21 .637 3.12** .000 3.7** .000

B2B2C 3.56 .351 4.1** .002 4.09 .993 2.53 .767 2.88** .001 4.02** .000

Trade shows Social media

Face-to

-Face

Company

Visits

Search

Engine

optimization

B2B 3.21 Sig. 3.89 Sig. 4.62 Sig. 4.46 Sig

. 3.61 Sig.

B2C 2.15** .000 4.45* .032 4.06* .028 3.38** .000 3.44 .941

Mixed 3.25 .994 4.67** .001 4.48 .912 4.18 .691 4.25** .031

B2B2C 2.49 .192 4.12 .840 4.4 .868 4.09 .726 3.72 .977

44

Table 3: Importance of Social Media Channels

How important are each of the following forms of social media to your marketing efforts?

(1 = not important, 7 extremely important)

Social

Networks

(E.g.

Facebook,

Google+)

Blog (E.g.

TypePad,

Squarespace,

eBlogger)

Crowd

wisdom

(e.g.BuzzFeed,

reddit,

newsvine)

Q&A (E.g.

Yahoo

answers,

Quora,

AllExperts)

Social

streams

(E.g.

Twitter,

app.net, aol)

B2B 5.42 Sig. 4.29 Sig. 3.45 Sig. 3.34 Sig. 5.35 Sig.

B2C 6.47** .000 4 .782 3.31 .970 3.77 .533 5.46 .980

Mixed 6.4** .000 4.91 .195 4.32* .027 4.57** .001 5.82 .301

B2B2C 6.51** .009 4.28 1.000 3.86 .785 4.6* .026 5.79 .656

Wiki (E.g.

Wikipedia,

wikja,

wikispaces)

Business

(E.g.

LinkedIn,

viadeo,

Xing)

Reviews &

Ratings (E.g.

amazon, yelp,

glassdoor)

Video (E.g.

YouTube,

vimeo,

vevo)

Pictures

(E.g. flickr,

snapchat,

Instagram)

B2B 3.58 Sig. 5.99 Sig. 3.93 Sig. 4.75 Sig. 3.8 Sig.

B2C 3.86 .809 4.95** .001 4.77* .038 4.96 .891 5.13** .000

Mixed 4.44* .032 5.66 .644 5.36** .000 5.57* .029 5.28** .000

B2B2C 4.44 .212 4.95* .044 5.67** .000 5.56 .219 5.26** .006

Location

(E.g.

foursquare,

sonar, banjo)

Content

marketing

(E.g.

Outbrain,

Taboola)

Enterprise

(E.g. yammer,

chatter, tibbr)

B2B 3.31 Sig. 3.53 Sig. 3.48 Sig.

B2C 3.72 .556 3.6 .996 3.43 .999

Mixed 4.34** .006 4.45* .022 4.2 .107

B2B2C 3.86 .603 4.57 .106 4.07 .559

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Table 4: Customer orientated usage of social media

How important is social media in managing the following activities?

(1= not at all important, 7 = extremely important)

Relationship Orientated Usage

Sharing

recommend

ations

Selling Relationship

building

Providing

customer

service

Commu. with

current

stakeholders /

customers

Providing

product

information/

specification

B2B 4.75 4.74 4.94 4.39 4.73 4.67

B2C 5.15 .131 5.11 .242 5.3 .235 5.16** .001 5.05 .399 5.11* .046

Mixed 5.12 .182 5.37** .008 5.48* .200 5.42** .000 5.34* .015 5.3** .004

B2B2C 5.33 .125 5.19 .386 5.79** .008 5.7** .000 5.19 .390 5.49* .012

Acquisition Orientated Usage

Corporate

branding

Building

corporate

identity

Raising

awareness in

general

Thought

leadership

(company

reputation)

Attracting new

customers

B2B 5.07 5.06 5.38 5.12 4.91

B2C 5.28 .678 5.28 .634 5.42 .993 4.78 .254 5.19 .461

Mixed 5.52* .048 5.56* .041 5.46 .959 5.19 .982 5.53** .008

B2B2C 5.28 .851 5.47 .428 5.7 .562 5.28 .934 5.7* .023

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Table 5: Perceived Effectiveness of SMM

(1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree)

In your

company is

social media

an effective

marketing

channel?

If used

correctly do

you agree

that social

media could

be a

successful

marketing

channel?

Do you agree

that social

media is a

valuable

channel when

building

relationships?

B2B 3.93 Sig. 4.66 Sig. 4.47 Sig.

B2C 4.45* .011 4.92 .104 4.79 .168

Mixed 4.65** .000 5.08** .005 4.95* .011

B2B2C 4.6* .030 4.93 .362 4.84 .339

47

Table 6: Cross Loadings & Reliability

AO RO DD PE CR

Attracting new customers 0.814 0.693 0.336 0.529 0.892 0.917

Building corporate identity 0.842 0.676 0.341 0.388

Corporate branding 0.810 0.637 0.345 0.374

Raising awareness in general 0.849 0.628 0.359 0.424

Providing product information 0.796 0.711 0.291 0.392

Thought leadership / reputation 0.717 0.626 0.330 0.282

Sharing recommendations 0.675 0.791 0.355 0.383 0.867 0.903

Providing customer service 0.638 0.818 0.326 0.395

Communicating with customers 0.601 0.807 0.323 0.351

Selling 0.651 0.791 0.300 0.374

Relationship Building 0.729 0.827 0.381 0.504

SEO 0.263 0.297 0.743 0.313 0.745 0.836

Web PR 0.308 0.253 0.710 0.296

Online broadcasting 0.267 0.317 0.712 0.318

Social media channels 0.380 0.373 0.827 0.554

Effective 0.424 0.452 0.526 0.836 0.810 0.887

Successful 0.434 0.392 0.408 0.877

Valuable 0.425 0.438 0.375 0.840

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Table 7: Average Variance Extracted compared to Inter-construct Correlations

1 2 3 4

1 Acquisition Orientation_ 0.806

2 Digital Channel Dominance_ 0.414 0.749

3 Perceived Effectiveness of SMM_ 0.503 0.520 0.851

4 Relationship Orientation_ 0.821 0.420 0.504 0.807

Average Variance Extracted (AVE) shown in diagonal. Bi-Variate Correlations shown below.

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Table 8: Path Level Co-efficients

B2B B2C B2B&B2C B2B2C

Direct Effects pval pval pval pval

AO > DCD 0.252 0.173 0.079 0.582 0.351 0.004 0.352 0.071

AO > PE 0.105 0.426 0.251 0.027 0.269 0.052 0.458 0.075

DCD > PE 0.461 0.000 0.304 0.000 0.355 0.000 0.182 0.273

RO > DCD 0.255 0.154 0.356 0.013 0.080 0.464 0.160 0.452

RO > PE 0.255 0.080 0.132 0.283 0.113 0.401 0.049 0.844

B2B B2C B2B&B2C B2B2C

Total Effects (Digital Channels) pval pval pval pval

AO > PE 0.222 0.095 0.275 0.022 0.393 0.004 0.522 0.022

RO > PE 0.372 0.014 0.240 0.063 0.141 0.266 0.079 0.734

Key: AO – Acquisition Orientation; DCD – Digital Channel Dominance; PE – Perceived Effectiveness of SMM; RO – Relationship Orientation

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